Calling the shots

While foreign companies are increasingly inclined to outsource legal work, Indian businesses are beefing up their in-house legal teams

Rebecca Abraham reports

In 2009 the legal department at Rio Tinto, a leading mining and exploration company, began outsourcing some of its work to CPA Global, a legal process outsourcing (LPO) company. Under pressure to rein in legal costs, Rio Tinto, which has its headquarters in London, estimated that using CPA Global’s team of lawyers in India for routine work would reduce its annual legal spending by 20%.

LPO was relatively untested in 2009 and sending legal work overseas was seen as risky. But Rio Tinto pressed on, firm in its belief that it didn’t “need to pay hundreds of pounds for something that shouldn’t cost that much”, as Leah Cooper, then the company’s managing attorney, reportedly said. Cooper added that Rio Tinto had “no choice” but to go elsewhere until law firms “fix their cost structures”.

Today Rio Tinto is just one of the many companies that use the services of LPO companies. Other global companies that do so include Nokia, Sony, Philip Morris and Deutsche Bank.